Facebook have still not restored our page, given us any options to comunicate with our 5000 followers or even responded to us concerning this matter.

CBDUK.org have however writen a good article regarding this matter which highlights how Facebook could be in breach or UK and European law. We have included this article on our blog, for you to read.

Facebook’s weird and inexplicable history of attacking CBD (hemp oil) pages is well documented. It doesn’t make any sense, but we all know it happens: Facebook routinely shuts down pages for any number of reason, and evidently CBD falls foul of one of its labyrinthine policies.

So it was perhaps no surprise that one of the most popular UK CBD pages, Canabidol who produce the CBD Gel-Tab, the UK’s best selling CBD supplement , was last week shut down by Facebook admins.

Facebook is a vital tool for pretty much any business today. If you want to sell anything- especially if you’re selling a niche product- a social media presence is vital. Many businesses, like Canabidol, spend thousands on Facebook advertising. It’s an investment into building an audience of potential customers, so when businesses lost their Facebook pages their profitability takes a hit, especially if they have client information, order details and other vital data stored in the page’s inbox.

So, Facebook has the power to make or break businesses. It is also the largest and most popular social network and so falls well within the parameters of a ‘dominant’ company, as defined by UK and EU law. This position of dominance comes with responsibility- the UK is placing a huge amount of trust in Facebook to operate fairly and adjudicate problems openly and in the spirit of justice.

When Facebook shuts down a legal page with no justification and in doing so threatens the livelihood of a business owner, it may not be simply acting unfairly. There are grounds to believe that they are breaking the law.

Article 82 of the EC Treaty and the Competition Act 1998 both enshrine the need for any dominant company to not interfere with the competitiveness of other business. The unpredictable and seemingly random way Facebook lets some CBD pages operate and others not is in clear violation of the requirement that they not apply “dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage”. Facebook takes thousands of pounds in advertising from CBD companies, lets them exist for a month or so and then shuts them down, forcing them to start the process again.

Why does Facebook want to see CBD off the market? Is it because they think it’s an illicit drug? It isn’t. Even the Home Office has explicitly endorsed the legality of Canabidol’s products.

CBD is produced from Cannabis Sativa L. (Industrial Hemp). While related to Marijuana it is distinctly different in many key areas, most notably in its complete lack of psychoactive function.